Translating a bright and noisy experience: videography for tourism research

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce videography as a valuable approach for collecting data, supporting theory-building and disseminating results in tourism research. Visual research is a powerful approach that has been intensively used in the main field of consumer research but surprisingly less often in a tourism context. However, most tourist behaviours and experiences are ‘bright and noisy’ and cannot be fully translated by written productions. This is why we present videography as a research tool in its own right, opening new dimensions to qualitative research. This article aims to discuss the advan-tages and limitations of video and demonstrates why it is worthwhile to tourism studies. It also explains the steps involved in the production of a video and illustrated by a 20-minute video on tourist souvenirs.